On Thursday, January 30th me and my group interviewed a man named Ronald “Cook” Barrett. Cook works in a gang prevention program to ensure teens born into poverty do not engage in this gang lifestyle. He has worked in this field for over 30 years and he is a certified gang specialist who has also won many awards over the years.

He was inspired to start his career in gang prevention because of the gang rise in his area. He lost a 16 year old to gang violence and that is what really kick-started his intrest in this field. What he specifically does is to oversee his gang preventioin program and he wanted to be a trusted figure to young kids. He started his program by learning within and interacting with gang members to learn more.

Cook taught us that the reason people stay in gangs is because of how deep they are in with gangs. He also told us that gangs would feel betrayed by people who leave so they would hunt down those people. Cook also told us that people like King Von and Pop Smoke glamorize gang violence in such a way that can also persuade people to join gangs. However, movies and other such media usually are somewhat accurate.

Cook believes that firearms and drugs are so accessible to gangs because of the Black market and the amount of dealers in the world. It is not even a hard process to obtain such things.

Rounding out are interview, Cook told us that most people join gangs just due to the struggle of poverty and the inability to access new clothes. He has always had to be careful around gang territories because he is notorius for taking people out of gangs. Overall, this was a very informative interview and Cook taught us what it is really like to be involved in gang violence within teens. He also told us what we are doing is a great way to get involved with preventing gang violence.